Auction-based Bandwidth Allocation Mechanisms for Wireless Future Internet

An important aspect of the Future Internet is the efficient utilization of (wireless) network resources. In order for the - demanding in terms of QoS - Future Internet services to be provided, the current trend is evolving towards an "integrated" wireless network access model that enables users to enjoy mobility, seamless access and high quality of service in an all-IP network on an "Anytime, Anywhere" basis. The term "integrated" is used to denote that the Future Internet wireless "last mile" is expected to comprise multiple heterogeneous geographically coexisting wireless networks, each having different capacity and coverage radius. The efficient management of the wireless access network resources is crucial due to their scarcity that renders wireless access a potential bottleneck for the provision of high quality services. In this paper we propose an auction mechanism for allocating the bandwidth of such a network so that efficiency is attained, i.e. social welfare is maximized. In particular, we propose an incentive-compatible, efficient auction-based mechanism of low computational complexity. We define a repeated game to address user utilities and incentives issues. Subsequently, we extend this mechanism so that it can also accommodate multicast sessions. We also analyze the computational complexity and message overhead of the proposed mechanism. We then show how user bids can be replaced from weights generated by the network and transform the auction to a cooperative mechanism capable of prioritizing certain classes of services and emulating DiffServ and time-of-day pricing schemes. The theoretical analysis is complemented by simulations that assess the proposed mechanisms properties and performance. We finally provide some concluding remarks and directions for future research

A Utility-based Framework for Assessing Fairness Schemes in Ad-Hoc Networks

Fairness in multihop ad hoc networks has received considerable attention in the literature. A plethora of protocols have been proposed, which compute the ``optimal'' bit rates of the transmitting mobile nodes over short time-scales so that a certain fairness criterion is met. However, there has been limited research on the impact of the varying short-term allocations of these protocols due to nodes mobility on the user-perceived QoS (and social welfare) for services of long duration. In this paper, we introduce a utility-based framework, based on {\em QoS-aware history-dependent} utility functions. These functions quantify the satisfaction that the users of the MANETs obtain from the way their long-lived service sessions are allocated bandwidth, due to the behavior of the fairness protocols proposed for ad hoc networks. Finally, we demonstrate the framework's usefulness, by performing a comparative assessment of the fairness protocol of our previous work with the standard IEEE 802.11